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Edited on Tue Jul-17-07 12:34 PM by welshTerrier2
It is very difficult for anyone, let alone individual citizens, to know what is enough and what is too much or too little. I cannot say "let's spend 100 billion or 200 or 300."
My approach is to look at factors that contribute to spending levels and to look at "competing interests" for budget dollars and set relative, rather than absolute, spending levels.
So, first and foremost, we are forced to acknowledge that We the People, regardless of what spending level we might choose, are not represented in the halls of our own government. Eisenhower shined all the light on that we should ever need. The military-industrial-Congressional complex sets the spending levels and the mutual self-interest, selfish really, between politicians seeking campaign dollars and defense contractors seeking profits provides a more-than-reasonable suspicion that spending levels are way too high now and were way too high during the Clinton administration as well. If the script was the same, i.e. the script that sets policy based on narrow self-interest rather than the national interest, little comfort should be gained on this issue between a republican president and a Democratic one.
Secondly, I look at our foreign policy. I see an imperial foreign policy dedicated, as above, to greedy, selfish interests. I see an imperial foreign policy that greatly increases hostility towards the US and greatly weakens our alliances around the world. We've lost our "moral stature" and our ability to influence world events without maximum coercion. This leads to a much, much greater risk to the US from all sorts of world events including military, economic and social considerations. In the ideal, we might have been a nation more able to influence other friendly nations to "be more like us"; as an empire, all we do is alienate.
And thirdly, we cannot assess military/security spending in a vacuum but rather must prioritize it in relation to other pressing demands. The three most pressing demands, in my view, competing for budget dollars are global warming, education and health care. Climate scientists tell us that we must reduce our CO2 output by 80%. Some say 90%. They're talking about now or at least very, very soon. The resources required to achieve even a small fraction of that are overwhelming. Massive infrastructure changes will be needed. We might have to reengineer water systems; relocate whole cities; build mass transit wherever it might be feasible. Staggering, almost unimaginable changes are needed. They'll be incredibly costly.
Looking at global competition, our population lags far behind much of the industrialized world in literacy, math and science. How long will we be able to sustain our commercial and military supremacy should this state of affairs continue. To separate education from "protecting the nation" is to be blind. Not only might we fail to continue to produce the most sophisticated weapons systems as other countries turn out multiples in the numbers of top educated math and science students, but we will continue to lose jobs, and companies, to competing countries. Weakness in national education is a form of gutting America's infrastructure that has led to global dominance for so long. To be sure, merely throwing money at education will not heal all our wounds; to fund education, as we are now, at such impoverished levels is not "an adequate defense" of the nation.
By what sanity can we build yet another weapons system while a child lays dying, his parents unable to afford medical care to get him treatment? Ultimately, I see no logic or humanity that can allow so many Americans to be denied both care and coverage while we continue to build offensive weapons on top of offensive weapons on top of offensive weapons. Again, it seems to me that if our goal is to "have an adequate level of defense", the first measure must be protecting the lives of our citizens. Clearly, if free enterprise is the determinant, our health care infrastructure fails to meet that test. We can argue in many directions about "socialized medicine." We can discuss all sorts of policies that distinguish between one set of underlying values about right and wrong and another. I can think of no standard that tells the poor to die on the sidewalk outside the hospital because funds for treatment are not available. In setting the "right level of defense and security spending", the first dollar goes to save that life. Since that is not the situation today, we need to cut the defense budget.
Based only on the insane meanderings of my own mind, I would like to see us start with a 50% cut in the military budget. I would like to see real campaign finance reform and publically financed campaigns. I would like to see a real progressive party that obliterates the failing remnants of American imperialism and demands a foreign policy that reflects our values as a people rather than the greed of special interests. I would like to see us recognize that our security derives not from killing machines but from how we conduct ourselves in the world. I would like to teach others that our security is heavily dependent on our own infrastructure right here in the US. I would like people to understand that patriotism is not embodied in fighting and war and weapons but rather in caring about each and every American and their fate on this planet. We will never be secure if we continue to follow the path we're on. The US today has a military budget larger than the rest of the world combined. If that hasn't made us "safe", what will? Perhaps we need to look at paths that go beyond the narrowness of spending.
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